Australia Weather News

Farmers are enjoying the rain break in the season across New South Wales which is kicking along their crops and growing valuable pasture, and filling farm water storages.

The shift in weather patterns from a drier than normal autumn has seen record-breaking June rainfall across much of New South Wales.

Farmers are welcoming the change from drier conditions which have prevailed through late summer and autumn.

From the far west of New South Wales where many farmers are contemplating their first winter crop in four years, to parts of the central west where crops are sitting in water, the landscape is a story of wetness.

This story is repeated in many farm storages, providing stock and domestic water security for coming months.

Hugh Taylor, from the central west town of Wellington, said his house dam was full for the first time in years, a welcome sight which he said was less common under a modern farming regime.

"This farm used to 'run' a lot more water [and] there was more run-off into creeks and dams under old farming methods," he said.

"But we keep more groundcover now and that can mean less water in our dams."

The Taylor family farm is spread across two kinds of country in the hills above Wellington.

"One part of the farm is on basalt country," Mr Taylor said.

"The dams on that country really only have the water that has fallen in them and onto their banks.

"But the other side of the farm is granite with a duplex type of soil; there's sand at the top and clay underneath.

"Those dams over there were still pretty good before the rain and now they are overflowing."

The Taylors are managing the reduced run-off into dams by installing tanks and troughs across the farm to run bore water to stock.

"This country was pretty flogged out when we came here, and it used to run a lot of water, now it runs very little," Mr Taylor said.

"So we rely on bore water for our stock supply."